Dead Island: Definitive Edition (Multi)
By: Deep Silver
RIVAL factions of brainless goons trapped on an island, beating each other senseless for freedom. It's a situation we're all-too familiar with on these shores, but Dead Island swapped hurleys for paddles and McEwan's for mojitos in a cult corpse catastrophe that's now been suited and booted for the PS4 generation.
Though you could argue the definitive version of Techland's island-set zombie-whacker Dead Island was actually the developer's superior follow-up, Dying Light. A first-person survival horror set at the fictional Royal Palms Resort, where the dead have risen from their dirt nap with a hanker for the gamey taste of tourist flesh, Dead Island was the gaming equivalent of a can of Lilt, mixing a tropical vibe with stomach-churning horror.
Players roam the resort in a battered truck, running side-quests, crafting weapons and dismembering the undead, and with firearms and bullets rare, the focus here is on beefy melee combat, with zombie appendages easily teased from their moorings.
A serviceable take on the well-shuffled horror genre cobbled together from the reanimated parts of other, better, romps, Dead Island’s sun-drenched setting is at least a change from the usual gloomy locales. And while its sequel, Riptide, didn't address the clunky gameplay problems that held its forebear back from realising its potential, it at least offered a brand-new island with more undead to paddle.
The one downside to this PS4 release is that only the first Dead Island is actually on the disc, with a code provided to download Riptide from the PlayStation Store. The collection also includes side-scrolling beat 'em up Retro Revenge, where a Jack Black clone smacks ghouls around like it’s 1991 in a Streets of Rage-esque beat 'em up.
Alas, Dead Island's simplistic combat and repetitive mission design are just as draining in these spruced-up remasters, which, despite the new hardware, target only 30fps on consoles.
A patience-testing double-bill for zombiphiles that knows it’s more straight-to-video than blockbuster, Dead Island at least provides plenty of cheap thrills for those new to the franchise.
And given the original boasted more bugs than an entomologist's study, Techland have fumigated the action for an open-world holiday from hell with enough cheap thrills to have your bum twitching like a rabbit's nose.
With over 100 hours of flying intestines and bikini-clad corpses on offer, it's a modestly priced collection perfect for miserly gore junkies.
